Novel Full Chapter 317: Moon (1)
Chapter 317: Moon (1)
Boooooom—!
Zeit hurled the overturned tectonic plate at Quay, but Quay merely stared at it, causing the tectonic plate to disintegrate into particles by a power that was either magic or authority.
However, Zeit’s battle was not even in its initial stage yet.
Hummmmm…
Zeit ignited blue mana throughout his body, causing the convection currents to freeze solid and his entire vascular system to blaze white.
Crreeeeeeaaak—
The frost crystallizing in the air, the ground shattering like a sheet of ice, and the talent that made Zeit the continent’s strongest were uncomplicated, consisting of physical abilities equivalent to a giant, as illustrated by an elephant running at supersonic speeds…
“Lord Zeit.”
… Moments before that elephant shot up like a bullet, a woman approached him, and Zeit’s face hardened as he turned to her.
It was Yulie, and although Zeit did not call her name, Yulie, too, said nothing, her expression alone serving to dissuade him.
“Why are you…”
Zeit, about to ask Yulie why she was here, suddenly looked at the group behind her, where Ria, Leo, and Carlos, the three children, had come rushing up a moment too late.
“If you fight here, civilian casualties will happen,” Ria said.
“… Civilian?” Zeit asked.
“Yes,” Yulie replied, gesturing around with her gaze. “There are many civilians who know nothing.”
Is she speaking of the ignorant civilians who are looking at me, the Altar’s followers, in fear? Zeit thought.
Zeit silently looked around at them—children, old people, women, and men.
“Knight Yulie, I’ll leave this place to you, as I think I need to go now,” Ria said with a somewhat impatient tone, then ran off somewhere, leaving Yulie behind and leading Leo and Carlos with her.
“Pardon? Where are you going?” Yulie asked, speaking to the backs of the three people.
However, Ria, appearing rather urgent, offered no reply.
“Umm…”
Pat, pat, pat, pat—!
Zeit gave a slight smile to Yulie, who was watching them run.
“Yulie, follow them,” Zeit said.
Yulie hesitated for a moment, but it was a brief hesitation.
“No. Where would I go, leaving my family, my house, alone?” Yulie replied, shaking her head.
“I, too, have companions, however. Even if it’s me, would I have come alone?” Zeit said, scratching the back of his neck in response to Yulie.
“… Pardon?” Yulie muttered, her eyes widening.
“Let us speak later,” Zeit replied, a wide smile spreading across his face as he placed his hand on Yulie’s head.
Zeit, quickly becoming serious, once more looked up at Quay, the God of the Altar, who continued to look down upon them.
“Will you follow me?” Quay asked with a blank expression.
“If you intend to prepare a separate stage, I will willingly accompany you.”
Then, Quay nodded and turned his body, signaling them to follow him.
“Yulie, go to your companions,” Zeit continued as he walked in that direction, restraining Yulie who attempted to unite with him.
“Pardon?”
“Consider this. Do you believe your presence would be of help if you follow me?”
Yulie was, for a moment, rendered speechless.
“However, you will be of help to those children. Therefore, go before you get too far, leave this place to me, and follow them,” Zeit added.
Thud, thud—
At that moment, Zeit’s group appeared, and although the current Yulie did not recognize their faces, their power and aura were undeniable, with merely meeting their eyes being enough to know they were formidable.
“They are…?”
“These are Arlos, Jackal and Carla.”
***
… Zeit’s reason for coming to the Altar was as follows—first, he advanced into the Ashes with his knights, and due to his cooperation with Josephine, the operation proceeded rapidly. There, Josephine located Arlos, Zeit subdued her, and together they interrogated her about the current location of a mage named Berbaldi.
Arlos made no particular resistance and, being someone who couldn’t be reasoned with, answered Zeit compliantly, stating that Berbaldi was in the Land of Destruction at the Altar, and Zeit believed her words, thus he headed directly there.
“… I found no necessity for the commotion that has been raised.”
However, Zeit held a safeguard in that not only Arlos but also her companions, Carla and Jackal, had joined them, creating an involuntary collaboration.
“Lord Zeit, what do you intend to do now?” Arlos asked.
They were now walking through the heart of the Altar—in other words, in the middle of enemy territory, through a darkness that might be a trap or a hell, accompanied by their enemies, because Quay himself had requested a conversation.
“The very moments for tactics are too dear to waste. Should it demand the complete immolation of the Altar, I will bring forth the resolution of Freyden’s Ice Age,” Zeit replied.
Freyden’s situation is certainly desperate, but even so, it’s careless, isn’t it? Arlos thought.
“Hmm…” Arlos murmured, glancing behind him where Jackal and Carla stood. “Carla, are you alright?”
“Yes, I wonder if the gas mask, being of good quality, is keeping me well,” Carla replied.
Carla had replaced her heart with Deculein’s Magicore, and though she was now incapable of using advanced spells, she remained alive while Jackal, as her escort samurai, was now on high alert, his senses extended in every direction.
“This is the place,” said the Altar’s priest, who was leading them and stopped before the massive door underground.
Creeeeeeeak—
When the priest opened the door, the expansive interior revealed only paintings, and the scent of oil paint filled the space.
“Is it a flower garden?” Zeit asked.
“… Yes, it is a flower garden. I am engaged in the very practice of creation.”
From a distance came the reply, and Quay, the being who proclaimed himself God, looked at them from the middle of the flower garden.
“Zeit, I know the reason why you came to find me,” Quay continued.
Zeit glared at Quay, his expression hardening.
“But that was not my doing, for it is a problem with the very land itself.”
“… Problem with the very land itself?” Zeit asked.
Quay nodded and spread his palm, upon which a spherical planet projected like a hologram—it was the continent.
“Yes, as you can see, the Land of Destruction is gradually expanding. The Imperial officials who survey the land every year would know that situation.”
On the spherical planet held within Quay’s hand, a section of the continent had turned completely black like a spot, which was the Land of Destruction.
“In other words, the land is dying. As time progresses, this Land of Destruction will expand further.”
Quay accelerated the continent’s time, and the size of the spot gradually broadened while Zeit, watching it, soon contorted his face because Freyden was among the continents being swallowed by the Land of Destruction.
“You may think the Land of Destruction is a land incapable of sustaining life, but no—that’s wrong. It is a land that has lost its strength and died.”
At first glance, a land incapable of sustaining life and a land that had lost its strength and died seemed similar, but in reality, they were very different.
“Then, what do you think is the cause of the land losing its strength?” Quay continued, clenching his fist as the continent in his hand dissolved instantly. “It’s because of your indiscriminate use of mana, you humans. By abusing nature’s mana through magic and wasting it on things like knights’ Defensive Mana Barriers, exhausted mana is being emitted.”
“This, too, is evidence of original sin…” Quay muttered, gesturing into the library. “If it’s hard to believe, you can research it yourselves. Those materials and evidence are abundant on the continent. I recommend the Imperial Palace’s library. They already knew everything but concealed the truth.”
“… Then, am I to understand that Freyden’s Ice Age finds no origin in your doings?” Zeit asked.
“Yes, it is a product of nature. It is also nature’s retaliation. You, Freyden, just happened to be unlucky enough to receive that consequence first,” Quay replied, nodding.
Crack— Crack—
Zeit stretched, his neck and hands cracking ominously, and mana bloomed in preparation.
“Then, you should be locked for a short while,” Quay said, waving his hand.
Swish—
With a mere wave of his hand, as if shooing away a fly, Quay caused the manifested authority to envelop Zeit and his companions, delivering them elsewhere. Meanwhile, in the now hushed flower garden, Quay slowly walked, staring at the paintings on the walls.
“One, two, three, four… Here they are.”
Among them, the eighteenth painting, originally a landscape of empty train tracks, now contained people who were not there before—Zeit, Arlos, Carla, and Jackal were captured with vivid faces within the oil landscape, glaring out of the frame.
“… I will no longer tolerate your whining,” Quay muttered, sneering with hostility as he started to walk.
There were many people in the various paintings of this flower garden. From the very beginning, the purpose of this flower garden was to serve as a human prison—a prison capable of effortlessly containing even Zeit, the strongest human in the human world, and even giants.
At that moment, Quay’s eyes fell upon a certain painting that drew his attention.
“This is…”
It was a painting that had not been there before—specifically, one that Quay had not painted.
“Deculein’s portrait.”
Upon seeing the painting of Deculein’s portrait, a specific individual surfaced in Quay’s thoughts.
“… Epherene, you came by,” Quay concluded.
***
Meanwhile, Ria followed Deculein, accompanied by Leo and Carlos, as he walked through the Altar’s crowd, moving upward level by level from the underground…
“There’s a restaurant over there, Ria,” Leo muttered.
“Follow me,” Ria said, dragging Leo along.
The current situation was serious, leaving no time for distraction, and even hunger had to be tolerated since Deculein was in the Land of Destruction.
“… Where is that Professor going?” Carlos said, speaking beside her after they had been following Deculein for about fifteen minutes.
“I know, right,” Ria replied, biting her lip slightly.
Deculein had already opened the door leading to the Sanctuary’s exterior, meaning he had gone from the underground to the surface.
“… Do we also have to go up? But we don’t have gas masks,” Carlos asked.
“No, there’s no need for that,” Ria replied, shaking her head.
If exposed to the Land of Destruction’s dense demonic energy without a gas mask, Carlos’s situation would be the worst, and furthermore, outside this Sanctuary, concealment and cover were impossible because there was absolutely nothing to be found.
Therefore, Ria utilized her talent, applying one of the numerous variations of Elementalization to the optic nerves, thereby eliminating visual limitations, which was clairvoyance.
“… Are you able to see anything? Ria?”
“Ria? Do you see anything?”
The children kept asking various questions, but Ria paid no mind and concentrated while Deculein appeared, looking at the lighthouse.
… The lighthouse—Ria knew what it was—was the object that would lead to the worst ending, the building destined to contribute most decisively to the continent’s destruction and regeneration.
“… Why?”
Therefore, Ria was left with no option but to question it.
“Why… is he trying to repair the lighthouse?” Ria muttered.
This was because Deculein, with his knowledge and capabilities, was attempting to repair the lighthouse.
***
… At the same time, in the Imperial Palace garden, Sophien was learning magic from the selected mages—no, she had already been learning for a long time.
“They seem to lack stamina, do they not?” Sophien said.
The mages, completely exhausted, were asleep, while Louina and Ihelm had been overwhelmed by Sophien’s prodigious learning capacity and her nearly infinite stamina and mana, and their sprawled unconscious state on the floor showed their fatigue was beyond words.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
However, one mage held on—Sylvia, who, though completely exhausted, was watching Sophien, and Sophien was proud of her as she seemed to possess greater stamina than the other mages.
“Indeed, you may rest now,” Sophien replied.
Immediately, Sylvia created her own bed, then lay down upon it.
Snore…
After watching the sleeping Sylvia, Sophien rose, and just then Ahan, who had been reading the situation, approached.
“Your Majesty,” Ahan said.
“… Have you found him?” Sophien asked.
“Yes, Your Majesty, Grand Prince Creáto is…” Ahan replied, her expression a little troubled.
“He is in the Sanctuary, then?”
“Yes, Your Majesty, though I cannot say for certain whether he is held hostage…”
Creáto was in the Altar’s stronghold, and Sophien was already aware of the implications of that fact, knowing that if he were a hostage, it would be an intolerable provocation, and if it were cooperation, it would mean a tremendous political detriment for the imperial family…
… Whooosh—
The moment Sophien was lost in thought over limited information, a gust of wind swept in like a refreshing current to cool her head, and at that moment, a piece of paper fluttered down to her feet, prompting Sophien to look at it and, without realizing it, tilt her head.
“A transformation formula?” Sophien muttered.
It was Deculein’s transformation formula.
What brings Deculein’s transformation formula to this place, all of a sudden? Sophien thought.
“This is…” Sophien muttered, turning the paper over in her hands before a sudden thought struck her. “… Oh.”
That is right, Sophien thought.
“I had forgotten,” Sophien muttered with a smile.
Indeed, there was one more selected mage, and that mage had also submitted a correct answer to Deculein’s selection problem.
“… The falling moon.”
In other words, Epherene Luna.
“… Is there something you desire from yourself?” Sophien muttered as Epherene’s image surfaced in her thoughts.